Battle Cruisers Are Notoriously Good At Crashing
by Authenti
Summary: A nasty crash leaves the Dark Ace incapacitated, and Amber gives him a lift back to Cyclonia. Yeah. Okay. I beat up the Dark Ace again for the purpose of being a fangirl. We've all done it. xD One rather offensive word near the end, rated M to be safe.


Pain! Agh, why couldn't he just go back to sleep? This headache was bad enough when he could only feel the ghost of it. He jerked awake properly with blurry vision as his brain finally made the connection to his nerves and told him his midriff was pressed against something.

A hand to his shoulder, steadying him as he almost fell off the side of his skimmer. Wait. Was there someone sitting behind him? And this _wasn't_ his skimmer!

"Relax," a calm voice breathed. "We'll be there soon."

He took a deep breath to ready himself for the inevitable turn around and _shove _that he'd give to get this idiot off the skimmer, but as soon as his lungs hit half capacity he felt like blacking out. With a groan, he collapsed sideways, though the wind rushing through his hair told him this would be a bad idea… that hand again. Whose?

He turned his head to the side, and got a faceful of blonde hair.

"_Augh, _sort yourself out and stop being so clumsy," came the voice. He shook his head violently and shoved the hair out of his face with one hand, although his damaged chest didn't thank him for it. "Just sit tight and try not to fall off." She sounded irritated. "It wouldn't make for a good impression if the commander of a Cyclonian army was seen losing his balance on a skimmer."

The Dark Ace took a firm grip on one of the sky ride's handles and got a foothold on part of the engine. His other arm was brought protectively around his chest.

"What happened?" he asked, and wished he hadn't. He lapsed into a coughing fit, and the sky ride slowed as the driver clamped a hand over his mouth in alarm.

"Hold your breath until you can breathe without coughing. And try not to use all of your lungs from now on." Genuine fear there, but it wasn't because she was frightened _of _him. Rather, she seemed worried _for _him. "I think you have a punctured lung or something. Some idiot didn't learn to ride a skimmer properly in their Talon academy, and ended up crashing it into the engine of the battleship you were on at the time. It went down pretty fast after that. You're lucky I was out for a joyride and managed to salvage your mangled self out of the wreck when it crashed into a mountain."

A crash? Yes. Now he remembered. An explosion from somewhere at the back of the ship, and hurried shouts everywhere. The front of the ship had buckled suddenly and… what then? Weightlessness… "Brace for impact!" Darkness as the crystals failed, and then a mind-blowing _loudness_. Silence. Then chinks of light began to appear… and then he blacked out.

"Bloody newbies," she spat. "Can't even pull off a dignified crash. I think you were the only survivor. Thank God for your armour, is all I can say."

"…Who…?"

"Amber, Talon scout, at your service. We're nearing Cyclonia now, by the way." He blinked at the skyline and winced at the large amount of border patrols. If they saw him like this… "Here, hold this." A crystal was thrust in his face, and he took it carefully. "_Don't _drop it. Don't even shake it a little."

The Dark Ace examined it closely… and then couldn't see anything but the clouds below. Alarming, but it confirmed his suspicions. An Invisibility Crystal.

"It's got practically nothing left in it," Amber explained. "Don't rattle it around too much, or it'll cut out early and everyone will see us. Don't think this is all about you, Dark Ace. I am going to an early grave if anyone sees me carrying a Talon commander on this old rustbucket." She kicked the skimmer in what he took for disgust, but she was secretly smiling. Amber had modified this Switchblade, and she liked how it had turned out. Even if there _were _now bloodstains everywhere and a near-paralysed Dark Ace slumped over the controls, coughing up his spleen every five minutes.

"Landing now," she muttered. "Take it easy. I'm switching to bike mode. We'll be at a private hospital in about five minutes."

The landing jarred him, pain clawing at his chest, but then it was all over. He shut his eyes tight and was unconscious in seconds.

_I'm fully aware you just passed out from a mixture of exertion and pain,_ she smirked, _but I can always brush that under the mat and pretend you almost trust me._

The thing about thoughts is that you can keep them to yourself without sounding like an absolute twat. The Dark Ace would trust no one but himself (and _maybe _Master Cyclonis), but it was every Cyclonian girl's dream to be able to help that guy in some minor way. Psh. Fangirls. And now she was one of them.


End file.
